Additional Information about Tom Zawistoski

I have been making calls to State Central Committee members this week and I am hearing some common themes that I would like to address. Many of you are telling me and my supporters who are calling on my behalf that “you don’t know me” and you have “never met me.” I am not surprised that the party leadership did not keep you informed on the amount of work we in the grassroots movement have been doing to help get republican candidates elected across the state at every level since 2009. I met with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan and worked almost daily with Scott Jennings and his staff during the presidential campaign. I also met with Marco Rubio and Rick Santorum and helped bring Rand Paul to the State late in the Campaign. I meet and talk regularly with many of our current Congressman, State Senators, and State House Members.

I understand why it appears unusual to you that we have not yet met. This speaks to your life long experience with the party where only insiders are considered for promotion. I come from the corporate world where we are always looking to bring new ideas in from outside our company because that is the key to being competitive in the real world, and in being successful. Read the report on the Obama Campaign; how many of those Silicon Vally data miners were Democratic party operatives? None, that is why they won. In my 25 years as the founder and CEO of our companies, I am constantly challenged to hire, and partner with, people who do not share my background. That is precisely why I do it. Because they bring experiences and ideas to our efforts that are impossible for anyone within our organization to have or develop.

The incestuous nature of political parties is part of the reason why they become so disconnected from their “customers” which are their voter base. That is what this vote for Chairman is all about. Having new ideas and bringing in new supporters, while maintaining current supporters. The only full time people in the Ohio Republican Party came “up through the ranks” of the Republican Party where they are told not to think, but to do what they are told. Usually by high paid consultants who also have no direct connection to the base of the party and who look at voters as numbers. You know that is true, you’ve personally experienced it. That used to work, but it does not work any more. That is why change is being forced upon you, and that is why you need to look outside of your organization for leadership and ideas, which is what I bring as Chairman.

Let me ask you a simple question. In your experience, does the Republican Party at any level consistently contact regular citizen unless they want something from them, like a vote or a donation? Not in my experience. Why would someone want to join your organization when it is always a one-sided relationship? I grew the Portage County TEA party from 345 members to over 1,600 in just six months. We now have over 2,300 members, and 600 of them pay annual dues. How many Republican County Organizations have that many active volunteers in a county with only 155,000 citizen? One out of every 55 adults in our county belong to our organization. How did we do that? Well here are a couple of things we are doing to show our fellow citizens that we live our values, we don’t just talk about values:

Our members are working with local nursing homes to bring a little joy to seniors by providing the nursing homes with birthday cards that they give to those under their care whenever a birthday comes up. The card simply says:

We wish you all the best on this special day.
May you spend it recalling,
with a smile on your face,
all the wonderful things you have witnessed
on this amazing journey that is your life.
Thank you for the contributions you have made
over your lifetime to help make our nation great!

This shows that the Portage County TEA Party appreciates each one of them, as a citizen, for their role, the role all Americans have, in making our nation great. The senior citizen appreciates the card, and those that come to visit them see that the Portage County TEA Party is a caring and engaged organization. We mail the same card to everyone who is in our local papers that is celebrating a milestone Birthday, like their 80th or 100th. People see these cards, and then when we reach out to them at election time, they are more likely to listen to our opinion because we gave them something before we asked them for anything. We gave them respect.

We are doing a similar thing with Anniversary Cards. Why? Because we support families and marriage between a man and a woman. Isn’t that the Republican Party Platform? Every anniversary that is in the paper gets this card from our organization:

“We heard about your recent Anniversaryand wanted to send along our Congratulations! It is the commitment to each other,as husband and wife and as citizens, that makes our nation so strong.You are an example for us all to follow and we wish you both all the best going forward! “The 2,300 Members of the Portage County TEA Partywww.PortageCountyTEAParty.com

Again, show respect for the individuals and the institution of marriage. Practice what you preach. Does the Republican Party do that? People see our card and it affects their view of who we are. It helps define us, not by candidates but by principles.

We are working on a program with our local hospital to give every new born baby a mason jar bank with a dollar coin in it, and on the outside of the bank it has our logo and the words “Welcome to America”. Our members are working with the hospital to provide rides home form the hospital for those that don’t have anyone to take them home. We sponsor little league and soccer teams with our logo on their uniforms with the saying “Defending Freedom and Liberty for All Americans.”

I look forward to bringing these ideas and much more to the Republican Party, but I am trying to make a point to you. The world is changing, but you do not have to change your conservative values, you have to promote them! To do so you need to invite in new people with new ideas who believe as you do. That has been the problem between groups like the TEA Party and others and the Republican Party, as I explained it to Chairman Bennett a year ago. You have institutionalized the art of rejecting new people, and new ideas. You have embraced control and given up competitiveness. You have given in to loyalty at all costs, and it is costing you all you have.

Our Republican Party doesn’t let anyone in because your fear of losing control is stronger than your desire to win, particularly when the money keeps coming in despite losing. However, the money is getting harder and harder to get because the competition is growing stronger. The reality is that the Republican Party is so far behind the curve today, that you are on the brink of destruction, because you never hold anyone accountable. The current situation with the “Navigators” that are required by ObamaCare is a perfect case in point. This is the single biggest threat to the very existence of the Ohio Republican Party and the Republican Party nationally, and we are doing nothing about it.

In Ohio, we will have 10,000 of these federally paid people, all working for “non-profit” organizations, to find people to add to ObamaCare. They will be working full time, every day, recruiting as many as 600,000 new Ohioans who, by law, are going to be given the opportunity to register to vote. Who do you think they are going vote for? How are you and the County Chairmen possibly going to be able to compete with 10,000 full time employees working against your efforts at the local level? Attached you will find a PDF on an article from the Daily Kos from just DAYS after the November Election, explaining how the Organizing for Action organization is going to use “Navigators” to register Democratic Voters. When I was trying to warn our Congressmen and Senators about this threat, after I became aware of the issue coming in front of the Ohio House in March, NONE of them had ever heard of “Navigators”!! The Democrats were working on it in NOVEMBER and the Republican “Consultants” did not even have it on their radar. We, the Republican Party, are not even in the game. So, what does the Republican controlled Ohio House do with the Navigators? They make sure, thanks to Representative Sears, that Navigators can’t sell insurance, but they didn’t stop them from registering voters in Ohio???

This is no accident. This is a direct result of the structure of the Republican Party as constructed by our current leadership. We will not survive this, we can not survive this, if we do not embrace change NOW. That is why I am running for Chairman and that is why I am deserving of your vote.

I will be writing again shortly to talk about some of the misrepresentations that they are pushing at you about me. I will close this letter with a simple piece of advice my father gave to me many years ago. “Listen with your own ears, see with your own eyes, and never judge a man by what others say, but instead by what you hear them say and see them do.” This is going to be one of the most important decisions in your life and you need make it based on your own thoughts or you will be part of the problem and not part of the solution.